The headlines wrote themselves, “For the Birds” etc.  But it is seriously good news to see that the USGBC has begun to recognize bird-safe building design as a worthy category of recognition within the LEED framework.

Untold numbers of migratory birds are killed each year flying to the bright lights of night-lit skyscrapers where many become confused and too tired to continue, or are thrown off their path.  And many more die by simply flying into our massive glass facades- whose reflections they cannot “see”, it looks like more sky to them.

Henceforth, projects that  undertake measures with regards to facades and both interior and exterior lighting can receive points via the LEED Pilot Credit Library.

If the measures prove effective the pilot credit could possibly become an official credit within the relevant LEED standards. A small step toward greater recognition of the interdependency between our built and natural environments.

FURTHER READING:
Lights Out New York: Save Energy, Save Birds [8.3.11]
Urban Green Council spoke with Dr. Susan Elbin, Director of Conservation and Science at New York City Audubon, about Lights Out New York.

Photo credit: Claudio Gennari

Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto is complete! The closing plenary on Friday was a pleasant mixture of inspiring presentations, rousing calls to action and jokes about Canadian accents.  Fortunately, the Canadians were the ones doing the joking so no international tension was sparked.

The session started with a bang for me on a personal level.  Judith Webb, USGBC Vice President for Marketing introduced Scot Case from UL Environment (a major sponsor of the conference) and she explained that she met Scot at Speak Green, the June conference I organized while I was at Urban Green Council.  She even spent a sentence describing what the conference was about.  I was pretty thrilled to have something I played a central role in lauded in front of the entire Greenbuild conference.

For his part, Scot Case gave one of the only sponsor speeches I can remember that seemed heartfelt and didn’t include a laundry list of accomplishments.  He told us why he was excited to be in the room (because many of his heroes had stood at the same podium) and why UL Environment wanted to support the event (because they want to be at the forefront of certifying the impact of materials and products for buildings.)  Kudos to UL for letting him do it his way.

Four speakers comprised the closing plenary, or to be exact, four speakers, one video and one pinch hitter.

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Benchmarking!  Energy Use Intensity!  Just saying them out loud gets me pumped!  In some ways Greenbuild is a full-on geekfest.  The more technical and the deeper into the weeds a session promises to go the more excited most of us are for it to begin.  Today’s lunchtime roundtable on Benchmarking is a case in point.  Measuring your energy and water use.  Reporting it online and comparing the numbers to your peers.  It’s not exactly Cirque du Soleil but if you understand the challenges that confront our building industry you know that just knowing how much energy you use is the first baby step in reforming the performance of our buildings.

The roundtable today brings together experts on the subject from New York City and Canada to compare and contrast the systems used, share the lessons learned in each system and discuss the potential challenges that remain and what can be expected in the near term.  It was an impressive collection of folks, including representatives of the NYC Mayor’s office, US EPA, Canadian Green Building Council, Natural Resources Canada and many others.

The Canadian benchmarking program is similar to the US EPA Energy Star program.  It’s voluntary, for instance, and some of our discussion focused on the impact if NYC’s Greener, Greater Buildings Plan- which mandates benchmarking.  On the one hand, voluntary benchmarking has, of course, low participation.  But mandatory benchmarking, while creating a much greater data pool, may encourage gaming a system that is, by necessity, a self reporting process.  Obviously, because I am familiar with the NYC program I found the Canadian program the most interesting.  They have been through a couple rounds of reporting and are starting to see the returns on retrofits.

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An early start at Greenbuild this morning with a really fun session on the next generation of LEED.  Scot Horst of the USGBC moderated the 90 minute program which was modeled after Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.  Seriously.  There were “players” acting scenes while Scot delivered quotes from the play.  Sounds corny, I know.  But it worked pretty well.  My guess is that he was inspired by the setting- the “room” was actually a traditional theater, with raked floor, raised stage and a hanging mezzanine.  Each session in that space today is an “Act” and each speaker a “Scene.” The individual speakers were great.   Lauren Riggs from the USGBC talked about the metric reporting they hope to provide to those that have signed on to their Building Performance Partnership.  Garvin Cardi from Christman Company talked about their new headquarters building in Lansing (more on this, below).  And Marcus Sheffer of 7group talked about creating positive feedback loops that span the divide between completion of construction and occupancy.  I chose the session to see my YR&G colleague, Lauren Yarmuth, present on building a culture within an organization.   She used her own stories and a series of photos, several of which were laugh out loud hilarious, to describe the continual journey and the constant attention needed, to build and maintain a sense of community.

On a more nuts and bolts level, Garvin Cardi from Cristman talked about the development of their headquarters in Lansing, Michigan.  The project got a lot of attention from the green building community for being “double Platinum”- for both LEED Core & Shell and Commercial Interiors (for their offices’ portion of the building.)  It was singular for being achieved in a landmarked building (it received significant historic building tax credits) and was one of the very first applications of underfloor air distribution in an existing building.  Michigan State University did an extensive study of the health and productivity of the building occupants and found solid evidence of reduced absenteeism, less asthma and generally happier employees.   Despite these solid results, when looking at their utility bills, Cardi found a problem. They were using twice as much energy as expected- even though people were generally very comfortable.  Their Energy Star score was 35.  Which is appalling.  So they spent a year commissioning their systems and found that without proper attention to the building controls they had systems like the perimeter heat in the underfloor cavity that were running full tilt, every hour of the year.  Through improvements of these systems, documented through the LEED-EBOM process they improved their Energy Star score to 81 (which is stellar) and became one of the first triple-platinum projects in the country.

Photo credit: The Christman Company and Gene Meadows

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Greenbuild: Tuesday
Greenbuild: Benchmarking Roundtable
Greenbuild: Cradle to Cradle
Greenbuild: Finale

Tuesday at Greenbuild is warmup day.  The Expo Hall is not yet open and the general educational sessions have not begun.  But there is plenty of throat clearing as the engine of this huge conference warms up.  Tuesday is traditionally the day of the Chapter Forum- when the USGBC gathers representatives from many of the nearly 80+ chapters around the country for sharing of best practices, networking and just generally getting to know one another.   I presented the findings of Urban Green Council’s Speak Green conference in June at the Chapter Forum today and the crowd was a wonderful amalgam of folks from all over the country.  You can’t help but be staggered by the huge variety of communities around the States.   One of the delegates was from Wyoming and in a presentation pointed out that the average population density of New York State is 357 people per square mile.  In Wyoming that figure is 5 people per square mile.  The statistic speaks directly to the vastly different challenges in these two places.

Earlier today the Chapter Forum heard from Cascadia’s Jason McLennan about his book, Zugunruhe.  I read it last year when it was published, and as with most things that Jason is behind (like the Living Building Challenge) it is full of intelligent perspectives on common issues, surprising connections, and riddled with humor.  “Zugunruhe” is the word German biologists use to describe the flutter of activity among herd animals in the days and weeks before they begin a migration.  It’s a beautiful metaphor for the current gathering of our herd- the green building community.  The book is worth reading for the chance to ruminate on this metaphor, and its implications for your own life, all by itself.

Tuesday is also the day of the International Summit- a gathering of folks from all over the world, including representatives of the many international green building councils advocating for LEED.  The closing plenary of the summit included representatives from Poland, United Arab Emirates, India, Romania, Jordan, Mexico, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, Finland, Korea, Spain, Norway, Argentina, Chile, Columbia, and Canada.   Sessions at the Summit focused on lessons learned from around the world and how these nascent councils can be supported.

The Brazil delegate pointed out that all 12 of the stadiums planned for the 2014 World Cup are required to achieve LEED Platinum Certification.  One of them includes 2+ MW rooftop solar array.  Despite the water efficiency realized at the stadiums for the South Africa World Cup, it is hard to imagine such an aggressive target being called for at the World Cup even a couple years ago.

Tonight the Expo Hall opens and tomorrow the general educational sessions begin.  Planning at Greenbuild is usually a mistake because the days end up being a series of derailments, but the sessions I am hoping to attend tomorrow include a presentation by my YR&G colleague and Urban Green Board Member Lauren Yarmuth on building culture within a sustainable organization, a panel discussion on Eco-Districts, and a presentation of the progressive Oregon Sustainability Center.  I’ll let you know what I see hear in this space tomorrow.

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Greenbuild: Wednesday Morning
Greenbuild: Benchmarking Roundtable
Greenbuild: Cradle to Cradle
Greenbuild: Finale

Just in time for our upcoming workshop on the LEED for Neighborhood Development standard, NRDC has published a Citizen’s Guide to LEED ND.  Billed as a “user-friendly and accessible” document, the Guide has been developed to provide residents, policy makers and others the tools to assess the sustainability of development proposals- using the technical framework of the LEED-ND rating standard.  You can download and gather more information (include a sweet little smart growth slideshow) about the guide, here.  And Kaid Benfield of NRDC blogs about the new document, here.

Dockside Green, Vancouver, Canada. Photo Credit: Lawrence Wong

In partnership with Les Bluestone’s firm, Blue Sea Development, Habitat for Humanity has completed a 60+ unit affordable housing project in the Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx. Habitat for Humanity projects are notable for their “sweat equity” program in which families actually help build portions of the projects – in this case, installation of interior finishes. This particular project is expecting LEED certification under the Home for Midrise Multifamily standard, but it is also notable for its adoption of Active Design principles like open and inviting stairwells, and exercise rooms.  Read more on the New York Times piece here.  As an aside, almost all American obesity programs have focused on our poor national diet (fast food, corn syrup) and sedentary home life (coach potato TV watching) but a recent study suggests our sedentary work lives also play a major role- so I hope you are reading this while jogging.  In any case, it’s great to see the Active Design guidelines begin to impact built projects, and wonderful to see another impressive project by Habitat come to fruition.

Photo credit: Amal Chen/The Epoch Times

Marc Gunther has a short piece on his blog about the inimitable Michael Deane, Chief Sustainability Officer for Turner Construction.  Mr. Deane was an early board member of Urban Green Council and has remained a long time friend of, and advocate for, our organization.  So it’s nice to see him get more props for the impressive work he is doing at the one of the largest construction firms in the U.S.

Never shy about sharing his opinions, Mr. Deane offers some juicy quotes including, “The only excuse for not building a LEED building is ignorance.”  Take that, skeptics!

The piece suggests that green construction represents an incredible 46% of Turner’s work.  I should also note that Mr. Deane’s colleague at Turner, Pat DiFillipo (Executive Vice President at Turner and a current Urban Green Council board member), is one of the speakers at our upcoming conference: Speak Green.

What more could you ask for? A stellar music lineup every week in this Brooklyn venue is the icing on this LEED-certified bowling alley.

Last week, the Emerging Professionals took a behind-the-scenes tour of Brooklyn Bowl to hear firsthand the many facets of its sustainable design from co-owner Charley Ryan.

Charley walked us through the trials and tribulations of becoming the world’s first LEED certified bowling alley.  Starting with the envelope, we were surprised to learn that not only were the original flooring and walls preserved in this former iron foundry but so were the rafters – including the illuminating skylights’ strategic placement.  Where new flooring is concerned, the stage consists of 100% recycled truck tires and the bowling lounge is 100% reclaimed cork.  Even the carnival-themed decor, from the clown bean bags to the shooting gallery birds, was recycled from movie sets.  The materials used throughout the venue aren’t just sustainably-produced or salvaged, they’re local.  The majority of the furniture, fixtures, and building materials were sourced from Brooklyn.  Even the 10 draught beers were brewed here – much of it from their adjacent neighbor Brooklyn Brewery.

Erica peruses a book on their design process while Charley describes the difficulties of sound-proofing the roof.

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On June 17^th we are holding our first full-day workshop on the LEED for Neighborhood Development standard.

Although our organization largely focuses on buildings, we’ve mentioned many times the great importance we feel should be placed on community planning. Where your building is located, and the contextual fabric of that location, is often more important than the design of the building itself.  It has always been clear that choosing a greenfield site over an already urbanized location has major environmental repercussions: from simple disruption of ecology to less efficient utility distribution.  Since climate change has become the most pressing issue of our time, we have come to understand that even just within the limited focus of energy-use there is a clear imperative to curtail sprawl.  The transportation and energy impacts of a building’s location were codified into the metric of “Transportation Intensity” by Alex Wilson in a quietly transformative article at BuildingGreen.com in September of 2007.  Here were the statistics that backed up many of our suspicions that, say, replacing a poorly performing inner-city high-school building with a LEED platinum school 20 miles outside the town was not an unequivocally good thing.

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